Avodah Zarah 55a — the Talmud in English

And so he says [

Zephaniah 1] "

I shall utterly gather everything from upon the face of the earth, says the Lord."

The Holy One, blessed be He, says to the prophet Zephaniah: Will He really consume everything?! And it is further said there: "

I shall gather man and beast, I shall gather the bird of the heavens

and the fish of the sea, and the stumbling-blocks with the wicked" [-

everything over which the wicked stumble],"

And we expound:

And is it because the wicked stumble over them—

that He will destroy them from the world?!

And will He consume man and beast, the bird of the heavens and the fish of the sea, and everything over which the wicked stumble?!

But surely

even

they serve man, [

the continuation of the verse:] "

And I shall cut off man from upon the face of the earth? says the Lord."

And there, in the continuation of the verse, it is said that the Holy One, blessed be He, will indeed stretch out His hand and cut off the idolaters, their priests, and their kohanim.

And concerning this the Gemara brings another debate.

Agrippa, the commander [

a Roman gentile in the days of King Agrippa]

asked Rabban Gamaliel: It is written in your Torah [

Deuteronomy 4] "

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God!"

And he asked him:

Does

a person

become jealous—

except a wise man of a wise man, a mighty man of a mighty man, and a wealthy man of a wealthy man!

If so, what is His jealousy of the idols?! Are they comparable to Him?! Are they equal to Him?!

He said to him,

Rabban Gamaliel:

I shall give you a parable: To what is the matter comparable?

To a man who married a woman

a second wife, in addition

to his wife.

When the second wife

is superior to her—

the

first wife

does not become jealous of her,

and she does not resent her husband; but when the second wife

is inferior to her—she

becomes jealous of her,

and resents him, to hate him.

And the lesson is: the Holy One, blessed be He, is not jealous on account of the worthless idols, images made by the hands of man, but on account of their worshippers, who leave God and the King of the world to worship idols .

The Gemara brings Rabbi Akiva’s parable concerning the idols.

He said to him,

an Israelite man whose name was

Zunin, to Rabbi Akiva: My heart and your heart know [

the version of Ein Yaakov:

know]

that idolatry has no substance,

there is no substance in it! My question is:

But we see,

we see,

men who go while dismembered

crippled men whose limbs have come apart because of illness, who go to idolatry,

and they come

and return

while rejoined,

with their limbs joined, that is: they are healed there.—

What is the reason?

Why is this so, since it has no power at all?

He said to him,

Rabbi Akiva:

I shall give you a parable: To what is the matter comparable? To a trustworthy man who was in a city, and all the inhabitants of his city would deposit with him

deposits

without witnesses.

And one man came

and did not rely on his trustworthiness

and deposited with him in the presence of witnesses.

Once, he forgot and deposited with him without witnesses.

His wife said to him,

the trustworthy man’s wife:

Come, let us deny it!

And we will not lose our trustworthiness, because he always deposits with us in the presence of witnesses; they will believe us that this time he did not deposit with us!

He said to her: Is it because this fool acted improperly—

that we should lose our trustworthiness?!

And even if we are not suspected in the eyes of others, we will not betray our trustworthiness.

And the lesson is:

also,

with idols—

so

it

is:

these sufferings, such as one whose limbs have come apart because of illness,

when they are sent upon a person, they make them swear,

from Heaven, and say to them:

You shall go only on such-and-such a day! And you shall leave only on such-and-such a day and at such-and-such an hour, and through

a certain

physician, and through such-and-such a drug! Once the time has arrived for them to leave—

this person went to a house of idolatry !

The sufferings said: It is proper—

that we should not leave!

So that it should not appear as though we left through the idols.

And they say again: Is it because this fool acts improperly—

that we should lose our oath,

by which they made us swear to leave?!

And the Gemara explains: What Rabbi Akiva said, that they make the sufferings swear and they fulfill their oath—

and this is what Rabbi Yohanan said:

What

is the meaning of

as it is written [

Deuteronomy 28] "

and evil and faithful illnesses,"

what is their evil, and what is their faithfulness?—

Evil in their mission,

for they afflict the body,

and faithful to their oath,

they fulfill their oath.

And concerning this the Gemara brings another statement of the amoraim.

Rava bar Rav Yitzhak said to Rav Yehuda: There is

indeed

a house of idolatry in our place,

in our locality,

that when the world needs rain,

when the world needs rain,

it appears to them in a dream,

appearing to its worshippers in a dream,

and says to them: Slaughter a man for me and I shall bring rain—

slaughter a man for me and I shall bring you rain! And indeed they did so:

they slaughtered a man for it, and rain came,

and rain came!

He said to him,

Rav Yehuda: It is good that you asked me this question while I am still alive.

Now,

at present,

if I had died,

if I were already dead,

I would not have told you this matter,

I would not have told you this thing:

For Rav said: What

is the meaning of

as it is written [

Deuteronomy 4] “And you shall greatly guard your souls... lest you lift your eyes heavenward, and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of the heavens, and you be driven away and bow down to them and serve them,

which the Lord your God allotted to all the peoples

under the entire heaven.”

What is the meaning: the Lord allotted them to all the peoples?

It teaches that He made them slippery through words,

the Holy One, blessed be He, allows them to err with idols ,

in order to drive them from the world,

and punish them for worshipping the idols.

And

this exposition

is what Resh Lakish said:

What is the meaning of what is written [

Proverbs 3] "

If it concerns the scoffers, He will scoff, but to the humble He will give grace"—“If it concerns the scoffers,” that is, one who

comes to defile

himself and become wicked—“He will scoff,”

himself and become wicked—"He will scorn":

they open for him

the opening of impurity to enter through it and give him the possibility; they do not prevent him from Heaven and do not hinder him, and they also do not assist him. “

To the humble,” one who

comes to purify

himself—“He will give grace,”

they assist him,

and prepare an opening for him, and the Holy One, blessed be He, gives him grace and assistance .

And likewise the gentiles who come to defile themselves and worship the entire host of the heavens, the Holy One, blessed be He, makes them slippery through words and opens an opening for them—

And therefore the idol succeeded in bringing rain when they slaughtered a man before it.

From here until the end of the tractate, the Mishna discusses the laws of “wine libated to idolatry” and the laws of “ordinary wine of gentiles” .

We learned in the Mishna in the second chapter [29b]: These are the things of gentiles that are forbidden, and their prohibition is a prohibition of deriving benefit: wine.

The Torah prohibited drinking “wine libated to idolatry,” and this is wine that was poured before idolatry. And not only in drinking, but even in deriving benefit; and the prohibition of deriving benefit is also a Torah prohibition, as explained there.

The Sages decreed concerning the “ordinary wine of gentiles,” concerning which it is not known that it was poured to idolatry, on account of “their daughters”; that is: in order to distance oneself from the feasts of the gentiles, for closeness with them leads to sexual immorality with their daughters.

And likewise they decreed concerning their bread and their oil, and similar things that lead to closeness of mind. But with wine they were especially stringent, and prohibited it even with a prohibition of deriving benefit.

And several reasons were stated for the matter: some of our teachers who hold: Since wine libated to idolatry is forbidden in deriving benefit by Torah law, therefore, when the Sages came to decree concerning ordinary wine of gentiles on account of their daughters, they decreed that its prohibition should be as stringent as wine libated to idolatry, as though it had certainly been libated. Therefore it is forbidden in deriving benefit.

And some of our teachers explain: If they prohibited it only in drinking, there would be concern because common people who see that one derives benefit from it would come to permit deriving benefit even from actual wine libated to idolatry; therefore they equated its law with that of wine libated to idolatry.

That is: on account of the concern for wine libated to idolatry alone, they would not have decreed. Whether because it is not so common, or because the gentile does not sell his wine after he has libated it to idolatry. Rather, the principal reason for the decree was on account of their daughters, and they gave it the stringency of all the stringencies of wine libated to idolatry.

And some of our teachers hold that at first they indeed decreed only concerning drinking, on account of their daughters. And the court in later generations saw that they had become greatly accustomed to libating wine; therefore they added to the decree and prohibited it even in deriving benefit.

And they were further stringent, prohibiting even wine belonging to an Israelite that a gentile touched. And this prohibition is also even in deriving benefit. The reason that the Sages prohibited a gentile’s contact with wine: some of our early teachers hold that it too is on account of distancing from them and from their daughters, since, because the gentile’s contact is forbidden, they will not come to drink with the gentile; and even if they drink with him, they will not come to closeness of mind, since they must guard themselves from his contact.

And some of our teachers hold that a gentile’s contact with an Israelite’s wine has nothing to do with their daughters, and they prohibited it only because of concern for libation, lest the gentile libate it through his contact .

Our Mishna deals with the law of a gentile’s touching wine. And it discusses grapes that were trodden and liquid that flowed from them: from when is it called “wine,” so as to become forbidden through a gentile’s contact?

In the winepress where grapes are trodden to make them into wine, there is a “pit,” in which the wine gathers after the grapes are trodden. The roof of the pit around it is made with a slight slope, so that the wine will flow into it. In this pit there is a vessel to receive the wine, or it is plastered with lime and the wine is preserved within it, and it does not lose a drop.

The beginning of the treading of the grapes is done by hand, and the wine begins to flow and descend into the pit. Afterwards they take the grapes and pile them in the “heap,” which is a mound of collected trodden grapes; and they squeeze those grapes with a thick wooden beam, and from there the wine descends through a pipe into the pit.

The place of treading the grapes and the heap is called the “upper winepress,” and, in brief, “winepress.”

The tannay of our Mishna [“the first Mishna”] holds that all the wine found in the winepress does not become forbidden through a gentile’s contact, because it is still not called wine, but only after its descent into the pit.

Our Mishna deals with a gentile who trod grapes [with his foot] in the winepress, and the Israelite buys the winepress from him.

Mishna:

One may purchase,

it is permitted to purchase,

a trodden winepress,

with the grapes and the wine,

from the idolater.

And the wine has not become forbidden through the gentile’s contact.

Even though he,

the gentile,

takes in his hand,

the grapes after they have been trodden and the wine has already begun to flow from them,

and places,

the grapes

in the heap,

and it is found that the gentile touched the wine at the beginning of its descent—even so

he does not [

the version of the Bach:

does not ]

make wine libated to idolatry until it descends into the pit,

and not in the earlier processes, before its descent into the pit.

When

it has descended into the pit,

if the gentile touched them ,

what is in the pit—

is forbidden, and the rest is permitted,

even for drinking.

Following the view of the tannay of our Mishna, that wine libated to idolatry does not come into being until it descends into the pit, another halakha emerges:

One may tread,

it is permitted for an Israelite to hire himself out for treading grapes

with the idolater in the winepress,

since it is not yet wine libated to idolatry, which is forbidden in deriving benefit, and it is still permitted even for drinking.

But if we held that the wine becomes forbidden through a gentile’s contact while it is still in the winepress, before its descent into the pit, it would be forbidden to tread with the gentile, because the Israelite would be taking wages for forbidden benefit and deriving benefit from wine forbidden in deriving benefit.

And likewise it is not forbidden to tread with the gentile on the grounds that the Israelite is “strengthening the hands of transgressors,” since there is a prohibition against defiling the produce of the Land of Israel, as will be explained.

Because the gentile is not transgressing when he defiles it, for the gentiles were not commanded to preserve the produce of the Land of Israel in purity, and a gentile who defiles it is not transgressing.

And seemingly, there would be another reason to prohibit:

Because the gentile’s winepress is impure, and it follows that the grapes become impure from the winepress after the beginning of their treading [and this renders them fit to receive impurity, for the wine that emerges at the beginning of the treading “renders” the grapes fit to receive impurity. As is known, no food receives impurity until it is first wetted by one of the seven liquids, and one of them is wine, which renders foods fit to receive impurity]—

And it follows that the Israelite who assists him himself causes the produce of the Land of Israel to become impure.

Nevertheless, the tannay of our Mishna permits it, since the produce had already become impure at the beginning of the gentile’s treading; it follows that the Israelite adds nothing to their impurity.